Step back into the kitchen of your childhood. Can you remember? What color were the cabinets? Was their linoleum on the floors and laminate on the counters? Or tile and granite? Was it warm or cold? Cluttered or clean? Was it a happy place? A lonely place?

Now put yourself back into that kitchen - can you recall the first dish you made? And that feeling you had when you made your first dish — that pride in feeding yourself, the confidence that came from doing something so grown-up, the joy of sharing it with someone else?

I think about my own first memory in the kitchen, and my mom is there. Likely the same with you. Certainly the same with today's guest, Erik Fabian.

Erik's mom is, by his own description, a curious, caring, deeply intelligent woman who poured a remarkable amount of herself into her home and her kids. A nurse. A cook of Midwestern classics — chili, spaghetti, chicken soup. Just an American mom. But of course, there's no "just" about it.

Whether it's Erik's mom, your mom, or mine — it is not an ordinary thing to have a parent hand you an egg and say: you can do this.

When Erik's mom taught him to make an egg in a hole — a simple piece of grocery store bread, a hole cut out, an egg cracked right in — she opened a door to competence, to satisfaction, and to a lifetime of feeding himself and others.

Today, that egg in a hole has grown up a little — eggs sunny-side up, avocado, and microgreens layered on a thick slice of sourdough, made with the help of tools from Erik's own company, Sourhouse.

But whether we make our first dishes now as we did way back then, today’s episode is a wonderful timeto remember and appreciate that what is wholesome and universal — like bread, eggs, and moms — are no less precious because they are common .

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Visit Sourhouse.co
Download the free Sourhouse Sourdough Cookbook
Bake the Book on Apple Podcasts

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201 The Midwestern Mom and The Coming of Age Breakfast